1. Field of the Invention
This invention describes the functionality of selfpropelling, compound conveyor systems combined with the triple continuity of; substrate preparation; substrate processing; and substrate/material development and finishing It describes mainly the application to fibrous materials, but is applicable to a wide variety of temperature treated substrates, materials, and masses.
This invention relates to machinery, systems, and processes for the treatment of continuous sheeting, materials, and axially centered masses in a gravity propelled storage area filled with air, gases, vapors and their combinations and kept at controlled temperatures, as desired from cryogenic up to the melting point of the substrates under treatment. The temperature of the volume of the substrates is regulated by the controlled temperature differential of the medium surrounding the substrates surface. The medium providing the volumes control is colder than the substrate below zero degree Celsius and hotter above zero degrees in order to provide a temperature stability. All temperatures affecting the action are sensor controlled and adjustable to suit a large variety of substrates and processes. These conveyor equipped processing chambers are augmented by state of the art preparation ranges before,--and development/washing/finishing ranges after,--the thermal treatment and processing chambers. It is a triple continuity between preparation ranges, thermal and chemical processing, and development/finishing systems, using the two crossover points to switch between a variety of multiple, differentiated preparation units, the highly flexible conveyor treatment, and the multiple differentiated finishing systems. Solid, or amorphous, axially centered masses of any shape, are simply held and rotated along the centerline of gravity and processed according to the requirements of the trade. While this invention has a very wide area of application, it will be illustrated for reasons of simplification mostly for textile fibers and related materials in forms and shapes wound on rotating cores.
In all cases of long sheetings of any material, but especially in case of moist impregnated substrates, strands of fibers, or compound layers, the systems are organized into multiple lines of substrate preparation, with or without drying, and transferred to timed heat treatment in steam, vapors, or air, and optionally developed, washed, and finished for delivery. Any step may be entered repeatedly in order to improve further on the state of the intermixed discontinuous and continuous operations. The processing in cold, heat and/or moisture, is modified by any addition of steam-, electric-, electromagnetic, dielectric-combustion-, ultrasound-, pressure, or chaotic/turbulent energies, in combination with an environment of vapors, gases, air, liquids, controlled powders, or any of them.
2. Description of the Prior Art
This invention improves on and adds to the disclosures in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,494,389, 4,984,439, and the copending application Ser. No. 07/907,609 of this inventor and is part of a new technology disclosed in further copending applications. It improves operational flexibility, increases the scope of processing, improves economy and ecology, and uses plant space more efficiently by superimposing stacking conveyors of varying dimensions with higher and longer treatment potential. The variety of conveyor lengths also permits to store in sequence masses of substrates destined for different duration of processing by selection of the optimal conveyor length. Instead of having to organize substrates in waves of increasing and decreasing processing periods accompanied by slow changes in the conveyor speed the length of the conveyor determines the optimal time zone. Conveyor speeds are still adjustable but the range within each conveyor is characterized by its length and has a lower amplitude fitting between the adjacent conveyors. Numerous types of conveyors are used to permit continuous processing of a multitude of materials with entirely new flexibility in the use of continuous and semicontinuous operations.